I can't forget, I hate to remember
by ShadowBYeBYe
Summary: Angst. A little oneshot. 10 years after defeating Ozai Aang tells his point of view on how things went terrible wrong. And the different souls try and figure out their purposes.
1. Chapter 1

Have you ever looked through hte eyes of someone close to you when they have been hurt? Have you ever looked in their eyes when you were the one that hurt them? I have. So many times. For a hundred years I let my people down.

And they didn't know, that I had done it out of my own cowardice.

I was the avatar. I was twelve, and I couldn't handle the pressure. I didn't want that kind of responsibility. It was out of my hands. How was a young kid suppposed to take down an entire nation just by throwing a few rocks, and spitting fire? It didn't make sense.

But nothing makes sense anymore.

It's been almost ten years now since I defeated Ozai. And things are not how the should be. Things went wrong from the start. I was supposed to complete my objection, to follow my destiny by myself, with out risking other's lives.

But again it was out of my hands. It wasn't my fault that I was found. Sure the entire world would have collapsed from utter mayhem, but I wonder what would have happened had I not been found.

So many faces. So many people that changed my life and gave me the courage I needed. Sokka. Toph. Even the exiled prince of the fire nation. But most of all.. Katara.

She was an angel, sent by the great spirits to guide me through the toughest times of my life. But now is my darkest hour and she is no where to be found.

And it's my fault.

Even though I was only twelve, I loved her. She never knew how much and that I regret. But it was better that way. She meant so much to me. A friend, a sister, a mother. Everything that a young boy needed she was that. True she wasn't old enough to be my mother, but she was always there for me, she cared for me. She was like a sister as well, always there to give a soft socld when I did or said something that I maybe shouldn't have.

And most importantly a friend.

I supposed it was around the time that Toph joined up with us, that I realized that the love I had for Katara wasn't a kind of love that could be considered healthy. It was more of a desperation for affection from a female. Considering the fact that I lived in the Air Temple there weren't very many women there, and I hardly knew my mother.

But Toph was a different story. She taught me so much and changed my life. It is a real shame that I never got the chance to tell her so. She was my Earth Bending teacher. She may have been blind but that little girl sure could hit you in the head with a rock is she wanted to.

I didn't want to hurt her or Katara. So many times I thought that I oculd go on by myself and not indanger any of them, but I never tried. Except once.

I had gotten almost out of sight and Sokka caught me. He wasn't much of a role model but I did look up to him. He told me that we were in it together no matter how much I denied that. And it was true. You could see the determination in their eyes. It was unmistakeable.

Even though we traveled together for a little over a year, we were really close, all of us. And even though I was technically the youngest I could see the others growing and maturing.

Especially the day that Katara found a half dead Zuko out in the middle of a forest. I was very apparent that he had been robbed, but we would find out until later that he was already unconcious when that occured.

Had it been a few months earlier, Sokka and Katara both would have said to leave him. That he was the enemy.But he wasn't the enemy any more, since his own country turned it's back on him. Katara knew this. I though for sure I would have to plead with my collegues but I didn't.

She saved his life all on her own. It had to be the mothering insticts. Not only that but it started a chain reaction that lead to a very deep and passionate relationship between the two.

True he was closer to her age then I was, and I had already begun to love Toph. But I saw her first. I loved her first. I should have had her first. But those are all just should haves. The truth was Zuko loved Katara and I couldn't stop it, even when she started to love him back.

But there relationship was short lived, when it finally came time for me to face Ozai. I learned a great deal from Zuko about his father and in turn it helped me to win the battle.

As I sit here on this rock, looking out at the rippling blue waves of this small mountain lake I wonder; with everything I lost did I still win.

I can still see Katara's eyes wide in shock as she lay on the ground. That was the final trigger. I was down and Ozai wasn't. I couldn't find the strength to pick myself up. Then he turned on my Friends. It is still a little foggy, but the Fire Lord had first aimed for Katara, but in a valiant move I hadn't seen coming, Zuko pushed Katara out of the way, the ball of flames engulfing his body.

I still am curious to this day as to why he did just relfect the flames. Possibly it was because he had lived his life with a dishonorable cloud hanging over his head and a disfiguring scar on his face. Perhaps he just wanted all the pain to go away. Or maybe he just didn't think.

But even with that, the coward within me wouldn't let me to my feet. Katara sensed my struggle and attacked the fire lord. She danced. She was great. But she wasn't good enough. Ozai took her off guard and with a very strong fire lit punch straight to the chest blood spilled out of her mouth.

As I seen her blood fall to the ground, my strength came flooding back. But it was too late.

Sokka couldn't wake her up or stop the blood from pouring out of her mouth. We had lost her. Did she meet up with Zuko on the otherside? Or did they even go to the same place. If only I had been stronger. If only I hadn't been such a coward, I could have saved her.

It was in my hands and I let her down.

I can remember walking away from the battle victorious, but feeling as though I had lost everything. Knowing that I was responsible. Sokka did as he should have. He carried his sister's body out to a dense part of the forest and buried her by this lake. I, in turn, buried Zuko at her side.

I could so easily look over my shoulder now and see the four unmarked graves but that would make it worse.

That night Sokka sat by the mound of dirt that covered his sisters body, and wept. I had seen him shed a few tears when Yue died, but this wasn't like that at all. He was sobbing, and uncontrolably breaking to pieces right in from of me. I could help him, I couldn't comfort him. What could I say? I was the one that should have prevented it.

He had lost everything. Only a few weeks prior a notice had come that his grandmother back at the south pole had past. So he had nothing left.

I can still hear his sobs just as plain as day, until they stopped. They stopped when he stood up, bladed boomerang in hand and walked off into the forest. I remember my blood going cold as I listen to him. He stopped. Then came the most eerie of silences, followed by a loud rustle as something hit the ground.

I couldn't go find him. I knew what he had done. I just couldn't, not right then. Had Toph not been still with me I may have done the same thing. She comforted me. She made me feel half way human again. She helped my bury Sokka.

Three burials in one day. A twelve year old kid burying three of the four of his friends. Toph lasted longer though. She was a strong girl and we had started a life together.

As proper we married at sixteen. We were happy, but I could never shake the feeling guilt. Her powers and mine grew exponetially as we would spare.

But now I return her today to bury the last of my remaining friends. How is it that I seem to bring an end to every one who is close to me? I was the reason Zuko and Katara were killed, and the reason that Sokka took his own life. Now I am the reason that my beloved is joining them.

A few hours earlier, she was holding my hand, smiling at me. Telling me everything was going to be okay. She lied.

She died in my arms trying to deliver my child. The doctor couldn't save her or the baby.

Now I sit looking out over the water and I can see a reflection of Katara in the lake. If I look at the sky I see Sokka in the clouds and Zuko in the sun. I can't look at the earth around me, or I see Toph and my child.

So I have to close my eyes. I wish that I could run. Run away from it all. Get away from the pain. But isn't running what caused me this pain in the first place?


	2. Chapter 2

The rain pounded silently on her flesh. She could see the rain drops hitting her but she couldn't feel it. She wasn't cold, nor was she hot. She wasn't really anything. She was empty though. Her heart had burst in her chest and the very breath that kept her going had escaped over her lips. She was a wondering soul. Lost and forgotten, left behind in the desolate waste land of limbo. Her life ended ten years ago, yet she still aimlessly ambled about seeking what she couldn't find. She didn't know what she was seeking, or why she was seeking it. She just knew that a pull tugged at her pushing her feet forward. If she could lay down and die she would, but it was too late for that. Death had already taken over her, with only a single powerful blow to the chest it was all over. She couldn't remember who had done it or why she was fighting. She remembered that something ached in side of her but it was only a echo of a long forgotten memory. She had no reflection, she had no meaning, she had no life. She had to have left something undone in her life, there was something that she didn't do. Otherwise she wouldn't be stuck in limbo between the mortal world and the spirit world.

It was always dark and raining. The feeling of rain would have been a welcomed change but no such relief came to her. Her eyes were void and white and without color. Her skin was transparent and her blood had become thick and gummy.

Memories tore at her mind begging to be remembered, yet they could not burst through the barriers that the reaper had set up a decade ago. Someone meant something to her, but she didn't know who it was, why they were important or what they even meant to her. She knew nothing only that death had not fully welcomed her. She could try and reach out to the spirit realm but only to hit a barrier. She could try and enter into the mortal world but she would begin to disappear the moment she set foot. In the spirit world she was a pollution, unpurified disease, but in the mortal world she was nothing, just a meager whisper of mist floating in the wind.

She looked up and seen beyond the fog, the same man in the mortal world returning to her grave site. This time he was burrying another. She walked over and stared at him. A tickle in the back of her head told her she knew him, but...who was he. She looked down at the woman that was being covered with dirt. She knew her as well.

She fell to her knees and grabbed her head. She couldn't remember. WHY couldn't she remember?! She looked up and seen the man start another hole. A much smaller one. She stood up and looked curiously. He bent down and picked up a small bundle setting it in the hole gently.

The man stood and wiped a tear from his face. He took his staff in his hand and left the graves to their peace.

She watched him continue on his way. She yearned to feel what he was feeling. To know the pain of loss, to feel the tearing of sorrow. Joy, happiness, love, pain all of these things she was sure she had in her life, but none of them could be recalled in the slightest.

She could travel among the mortal world and see the things there, as well with the spirit world, but she could touch anything because of the barriers.

She walked along the graves looking at them with a need to know. To remember. These names these engravings.

"Katara, Sovereign of the Southern Water Tribe, Died in Battle." She stared at the stone. This was her grave, but the words meant nothing to her. Katara? Was that her name? Southern Water Tribe...where she was from? Battle...what battle? She looked down at her hands and frowned, just what had she been through, why was she dead, and why was she stuck..

"Sokka, Heir to the Southern Water Tribe, Died of Anguish." Sokka, the name brought a twinge to her chest, had her heart still been there it would have ached. She knew that she knew the name, and it would appear by the tombstones, that he was her brother... Her family, she couldn't remember. But the grave on the other side of her's was the one that pulled her. She wandered around limbo but always ended up back at the graves a pull drawing her to them.

"Zuko, Prince and heir to the Fire Nation, Died of unceasing Bravery." She reached out and started to touch the headstone but pulled her hand back as it began to fade away. She turned and looked at the two new graves, unmarked. She looked back and seen the man sitting on a rock looking over a lake.

He was in a great deal of pain. His eyes were so full of anguish and loneliness. She felt a need to hug him to tell him every thing would be alright. But why? Who was he? How could she do anything when she didn't know who she was or why she was wandering around searching for something that she not yet what was.

Lost and alone, with out memories, with out company, with no meaning and no purpose. Death...was so empty.


	3. Chapter 3

He could only look on. So many times had her eyes set up on him, the empty wide voids. Long faded was her deep cerulean depths that had first captivated him. She would look at him, but would not know him. She knew nothing. Remembered nothing. She was stuck in a place that could be considered hell. Stuck between the worlds with unfinished business left behind in the mortal world.

He had racked his mind over and over again trying to figure out just what it was that she had left undone, but couldn't figure it out. If anyone should have been stuck between, it should have been him. He was the one that had the demons that fought inside him. He was the one that turned on his own country and allied with the enemies. One demon would pull him toward patriotism, the good fight for his country on his father's side. To prove to his father he was something, not a useless lump of flesh. Another demon pulled him toward the side of the enemy, to defeat; his father, take back his throne, and stop the use less hundred-year war. Then still the other. The more persistent, the most passionate, pulled him another way. Toward her. Her beauty, her caring, her love. It was all that he had wanted in life, and now in death it was the only thing that he couldn't have. She had taken to him with hesitation. They had been enemies. But soon the hatred spilled over to friendship, friendship spilled over to desire, desire fell to love, and love became passion.

The passion and longing for her now was the hottest burning that he had ever felt, even in life when he held fire with his own hands. The knowledge that she would never be his destroyed him. The one thing that death had brought him was the relief from physical pain. But the emotional and mental was still there. He could remember. He could feel sorrow and loss.

He could feel a pang of madness when she would look over him with no emotion with no recognition. Only that he was a spirit in the other world.

He had tried to take her hand, to lead her to the spirit world, but he couldn't pass. He had asked many of the spirits he had come across in his world, just why he had passed through. They all gave him the same answer. He was complete. He had finished what he was sent to do, and done the things he needed to.

He followed her along the barrier. She always wandered back to the same spot. Their graves. He looked over the markers. He felt his heart cringe as she tried to touch his tomb stone. She knew very little but she was pulled by the graves. Curiosity, or insanity, it could be either that drove her back.

He watched as she looked over her and her brother's grave. Sokka. Zuko turned and looked back into the spirit world. Far beyond the mountains, past the sea of criminals, to the land designated for the souls, complete but to soon left the mortal world. He was confined there with chains of fire. He cried day and night at all hours, the sorrowful wailing floating on the wind reaching the ears over everyone. Even Katara would look up when the moans were particularly woeful.

It was clear she didn't know what they were, or who was making them, but it caught her attention if only for a second.

Time passed so quickly. Sokka had been in the spirit world as long as he had, and had ever since been fighting to be free like the other souls. To find his sister so that his crying could come to an end. But his fight was futile. It wasn't until his sister could see what exactly needed to be completed, that his chains would break. The laws of the spirit world deemed that any who take their own life, must be kept in torment until the one that the anguished was caused for joins them. He frowned. There wasn't much difference between Sokka's suicide, and the way he himself had gone. He had set himself in front of fire, knowing that if he didn't reflect it or absorb it he would certainly die. But his heart had acted before his mind caught up, and by then it was far too late. He watched from the spirit world as his body burned. He looked at her once more before he turned around. He also watched his water goddess dance in combat and fall at the hand of the Fire Lord. Many years he waited for her. Waiting for her to enter the spirit world. That was before they crossed paths for the first time after death. Years only seemed like minutes in his realm, but he had heard tale that a minute seemed like a year in limbo.

The only way for them ever to be together again, and the only way to stop Sokka's lamenting, was for Katara to finally figure out what it is she had left behind . . .


End file.
